Toshiba's DynaPad is a lighter, thinner and lower-end Surface alternative

While Toshiba provided a glimpse at a prototype of its dynaPad hybrid last month at IFA in Berlin, it didn't have any details on the system. Today the company revealed much more about the device, which weighs less and is thinner than a Surface Pro 4 and has an optional keyboard.

Running on Windows 10, the dynaPad is a 12-inch tablet with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,280 (just 192 pixels per inch). The device has a monocoque carbon body with a rubberized gold finish that the company says makes it comfortable in the hand.

The optional keyboard works as a stand for the tablet, so there's no kickstand on the slate itself, and the accessory doesn't clip onto the device when it's not in use. On the plus side, it does have full-sized keys with 1.5 mm of travel.

Perhaps more interesting is support for Wacom's Active Electrostatics TruPen stylus (there's one included in the box), which offers 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity (double the levels of the Surface Pro 4's pen). Toshiba claims that the high-accuracy experience makes drawing or note taking on the dynaPad feel like you're putting pen on paper.

The tablet itself weighs 1.25 lbs (567g) and measures 6.9 mm (0.27 in) thick, making it both thinner and lighter than Microsoft's own Surface Pro 4. On the other hand, performance won't be nearly as strong, with the the slate running on an Intel Atom chip, rather than the higher-end Intel Core processors you'll find in the Surface Pro line. It's also limited to just 4 GB of RAM.

There's no official pricing for the dynaPad just yet, but we do know that's it's scheduled to arrive in the US in the first quarter of 2016.